Saturday 1 September 2012 19.08 EDT
First published on Saturday 1 September 2012 19.08 EDT

Last month, it was a track called New York that, to employ the technical parlance, blew up the internet. The artist responsible is 21-year-old Angel Haze, who raps so deftly, ferociously and with such menace over its stark and clattering handclap beat that that "flow" seems too mellow a word for her delivery. It means no one's arguing with its boast, a refrain of "I run New York".

"I will say to anyone's face I am the best out there right now," she declares. "I put everyone in my school on to Nicki Minaj before she blew up. I was obsessed with her and I was like, 'If she's the best female rapper then I've got to be better than her.' There's no one out there right now who can beat me."

After the braggadocious calling card that was New York, Haze released an EP online: the acclaimed Reservation is titled with her Native American heritage in mind, but also serves as a statement of arrival: "That was my way of introducing myself – I've made a reservation here already."

She's been proved right. Three weeks after Reservation's release she had her pick of the major labels. Ever pragmatic, Haze signed with Universal, based on "their statistics, their success rate and the fact that I got a pretty damn good deal outta them". I have no trouble imagining her driving a hard bargain with those Universal execs, but where does all this formidable self-possession come from? Partly, she explains, from the adopted city where her career took off.

"Living in New York, you get a lot of confidence; when I go back to Michigan, I realise how obnoxious and demanding and straightforward I am. You have to be that way here – fully assertive and know who you are, otherwise people will take ultimate advantage."

Haze has said she wants to be thought of as a rock star rather than a rapper, because "rock stars get to do whatever they want. They don't have all this stigma attached to them – that you have to be a thug, you have to have been shot, you have to be so hard that no one ever suspects you're gay. As a female rapper, you have to sell your body, you have to be attractive, you have to be promiscuous. You never see any female rock stars being told, 'Take off your clothes, be sexy'. I want to have that type of freedom but still be able to say whatever I want as a rapper."

Inevitably, she's attracting comparison with both her idol, Minaj, and contemporaries such as Azealia Banks. "Guys pit female rappers against each other because female rappers – if you haven't noticed of late – are a lot more interesting than guys. That's why they have this all-male clique thing going on. I specifically told my manager, 'Don't get me any meetings with any boy groups… I want to stand on my own, hold my own. Angel Haze is one person"

Born in Michigan, Haze was raised in the Greater Apostolic Faith, a church she describes as "a cult". The family left when she was 10 and her mother was convinced that she and her older brother were going to be killed by God as punishment. "My mum was like, 'Secular music is a way you can guarantee your space in hell', but when I got to 16 she let us do whatever we wanted."

She promptly gorged herself on pop culture ("my iPod had the most songs in it, ever"), but has now gone from consuming everything to listening to virtually nothing.

"I don't need to have my system infiltrated by anyone," she explains. "My sound is mine and as I advance it I don't want anyone else to come in there and mix themselves up with me." She shows me her phone as proof: the only other music on it is newly crowned R&B superstar Frank Ocean. Like Ocean, Haze has been frank about her sexuality, describing herself as "pansexual".

"Love is boundary-less," she asserts. "If you can make me feel, if you can make me laugh – and that's hard – then I can be with you. I don't care if you have a vagina or if you're a hermaphrodite or whatever." She concedes that her progressive thinking is "not really an accepted position" in the industry she's chosen. "But you have to be fearless. If I fall, if I float, I'm going to be me regardless. People are going to hate you and they're going to love you with a passion you cannot imagine. I'm feeling the love right now and I'm feeling the hate too, it comes hand in hand. But," she says with a smile, "I'm happy – more love than hate."

Five years ago she escaped from a religious 'cult' where music was banned. Today, she is one of hip-hop's most outspoken voices with her raw personal tales of rape and sexual abuse. She talks to Alex Macpherson